Sohlberg and the Gift

by Jens Amundsen

  “I’d like to get the report as soon as possible . . . now please.”

  “That’s fine. But before I get you a visit with Helland’s doktor . . . and before I give you the report . . . I’d like us to engage in some psychological nudity.”

  “Us? Or do you mean me? . . . I’m not sure that I want to do any psychological stripping just so I can get a visit with Ludvik Helland . . . or a look-see at his report.”

  “But sir . . . you started peeling off your garments the moment you stepped inside my office . . . first of all you’re clearly a man on a mission . . . you barged in here and practically demanded the report from me . . . you have a uniform . . . a badge . . . that’s the perfect Jungian archetype for the Hero On A Mission . . . Odysseus . . . Jason . . . Who knows? . . . You may even be an epitome.”

  Sohlberg shook his head.

  “What I want Chief Inspector . . . is . . . to see you stripped down to your core . . . so I can study the complex . . . your core pattern of emotions and memories and ideas and desires of your unconsciousness and how they are organized around a common theme.”

  “Doktor . . . what in the world are you talking about?”

  “Your common theme . . . what drives you.”

  “My job dives me.”

  “Wrong. Something much deeper in you drives you . . . something deep in your subconscious. . . . Is it guilt? . . . Or do you have a hero complex . . . a man who must save lost kittens and puppies and many damsels in distress?”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You see? Your response tells me that you’re a man who takes from women but does not like to give back. You want a report from me that you can’t find anywhere else. Obviously it’s very important for you. And yet you call my probing questions nonsense. . . . You’re a man who feels that women impose on you . . . and so do friends and children and family members. You feel that all of us impose on you . . . and your time . . . and your career. . . . You’re a lonely man who’s also a loner . . . despite outward shows of caring and affection you’re a man who deep down jealously guards his selfishness . . . his ego.”

  Sohlberg laughed but nervously. She had him: she knew him inside out. A tactical retreat could save him from being dissected so grossly. He offered her a bone:

  “Alright . . . you’ve got me. I plead guilty. You got a peep show into my soul. Now can I get the report?”

  Dr. Nansen opened a desk drawer. She took out a fat manila envelope that had the label Application for Clinical Trial in large black letters. She threw the envelope at him and said:

  “Fill out the questionnaire. I expect it back here within seven days. After I and my doctoral thesis students review your responses you can start coming once a week to receive treatment from me.”

  “Where? . . . At the Psychosis Research Center? . . . Do you think I’m psychotic?”

  “I don’t know. . . . You’re putting the cart before the horse . . . aren’t you? . . . I haven’t diagnosed you yet. And . . . no . . . you’re not a patient at the Center. You’re a patient at my Clinical Diagnosis Group . . . where I teach students from real-life patients that I’m diagnosing and treating. So . . . your first appointment will be on the fifteenth of January.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. . . . Your mental health is no joke to me. Also . . . before you leave . . . you can pick up the Ludvik Helland report.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s the red book on that bottom shelf there . . . the second one below that small marble bust of Jung. Then please go to the room on your right that’s five doors down . . . room three zero nine . . . ask my assistant to make a copy of the report for you. Be nice to her . . . she hates cops. Have her ring me if she doesn’t believe you . . . she also hates men. And authority figures.”

  “Thank you.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  He thought that she would ask him for his badge or business card. Instead she said:

  “Don’t be late for your first appointment. We meet at four in the afternoon. Now run along. I’ve got work to do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  During the drive back home the same old questions tormented Sohlberg:

  Who sent Astrid Isaksen?

  Why?

  What is her connection to the Janne Eide homicide?

  Sohlberg could only think that Astrid Isaksen’s connection to the Janne Eide case was her father—Jakob Gansum. He was the only person related to Astrid Isaksen who could be considered to have any possible connection to the Janne Eide murder.

  But what is his connection to the case?

  After all Jakob Gansum had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared—dropped off the police radar so to speak—a year or more before the murder of Janne Eide.

  Could the snitch know something?

  Why would Jakob Gansum send his daughter to get himself tangled up in the Janne Eide homicide?

  ~ ~ ~

  Emma Sohlberg was upset. She didn’t even wait for him to enter the living room before she called out:

  “Is that you Sohlberg?”

  Her angry voice stopped him dead in the hallway just as he entered the front door. The tone of her voice told him that she was very upset. Maybe even extremely angry.

  “Where have you been?” Fru Sohlberg was clearly not amused. Her voice trembled.

  Sohlberg walked all the way into the living room. She stood with her fists clenched.

  “At work . . . why?”

  “Because . . . they’ve been calling you here all day long from the office. I’ve been so worried. I thought may be you had been shot or injured or killed or in an accident.”

  “What?”

  “Your old pal Ivar Thorsen showed up here less than an hour ago.”

  Sohlberg walked up to his wife. The roaring fireplace did nothing for the cold and suspicious looks he received from his wife.

  “Thorsen was here?”

  “Oh yes. . . . He said they had been trying to find you all afternoon . . . said you were going to interview witnesses in the Aker Brygge . . . but when they called the people you listed they could not find them. According to Thorsen the people in your witness list don’t exist.”

  “I—”

  “No . . . stop. Listen to me. You’ve been acting very strange the past couple of days . . . ever since a week ago when you gave me that story about working a case that’s complicated.”

  “It is complicated. That’s why that moron Ivar Thorsen fell for my trap. I didn’t want him getting any ideas about the case I’m actually working on. But I never thought that the jerk would actually start calling up my witnesses after he rifled through my desk. . . . He has no right . . . no right to intervene in my case or with my family! That piece of garbage. . . . Who does he think he is? . . . My boss?”

  “So . . . he’s just harassing you? . . . It’s just a pissing contest between you two?”

  “Yes! . . . Look here’s the proof . . . take a look at my cell phone’s log of incoming calls . . . he never once bothered to call me on my work cell phone. Not once! . . . No one from the Zoo called me at all today! . . . So he made up the emergency. He manufactured a crisis so that he could trick you into telling him where I was and what I was doing.”

  “Regardless . . . I’ve been so worried about you.”

  Sohlberg hugged her and kissed her softly on the lips and cheeks. He whispered:

  “I’m sorry. . . .”

  “Sohlberg . . . you don’t understand. I’m worried about you. You’ve become distant . . . withdrawn . . . just like when you’re on a brand new case. And yet you told me you’re not investigating any new cases . . . no new homicides.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “So there’s no need for the odd workdays and hours . . . like taking off on Saturday and Sunday to unknown parts with unknown persons. You’ve been acting so strange lately . . . so sneaky . . . furtive.”

  “Furtive?”

  She pulled away from the hug but st
ayed within inches of him. With a resigned air she nodded and said:

  “Yes. I know. You’re keeping secrets from me. Wait a minute. . . . What’s that smell on you? . . . Have you been smoking? . . . And . . . and what an odd smell . . . I think there’s even some woman’s perfume floating somewhere in there with your tobacco fumes.”

  “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to drag you into this.”

  “Drag me into what? . . . What’s this all about?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “That’s not good. It’s just as bad as your ‘It’s complicated’ cover story.”

  “I don’t even know where to start. . . .”

  “Oh . . . this is not good. Not good. Not good at all. It’s a mess when you don’t even know where to start.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “That makes it even worse. Far worse.”

  Chapter 8/Åtte

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, OR

  SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY

  You see. I told you. Your letter did squat. It would’ve been better for you if you put your letter in a bottle tossed in the Atlantic Ocean.

  I’ll take my chances.

  Chances. Is that what you call losing out on a greater opportunity. Me and my plan.

  Like I said. Killing’s mighty personal to me. I want it one on one.

  But you told me you used to do two and three chicks at the same time. Four one night if I remember correctly. Now you’re Mister Monogamy.

  I am mighty monogamous when it comes to killing the bitch. That I don’t share with no one.

  That’s amateur talk. Greenhorn bragging. Boy you ain’t nothing unless you learn from a master.

  I heard your story a million billion times about those Americans.

  Yep. Henry Lee Lucas. The Great American Serial Killer. He was a great killer because he also taught and inspired and loved Ottis Toole. Now mind you. Ottis was no slouch himself. He started putting out souls at the tender age of fourteen. His first one was some sissy traveling salesman who as always wouldn’t pay Ottis for oral services rendered in the sissy’s car. So he beat up the sissy who ran like they all do and Ottis bless his heart got in the sissy’s car and just stepped on the accelerator. Ottis mowed down that traveling salesman sissy married father of two. What’s a redneck Florida swamp judge to do but let Ottis off the hook and back in the pond to grow bigger. And boy was he ever growing bigger. Couldn’t help it. He was a cannibal. Said it was in his genes. Hungry little bugger.

  You got more lies rolling off you lips than a politician does.

  Lies. That’s what you and others call them because you can’t handle the truth.

  What truth. You don’t know truth.

  I lived it. Like the time Ottis cut the head off that Adam Walsh boy in Florida. Where do you think I learned all that stuff about kidnaping and killing. Who do you think helped get that little Adam Walsh boy out of the Sears store and into the parking lot. Ottis lied to protect me when he told the police he picked the boy up in the parking lot in that old white Cadillac he was driving back then. How you think Ottis got his hands on that sweet little boy. An angel named Me got him to Ottis.

  So you say. I doubt you ever been anywhere let alone America.

  No one looked. No one saw the falcon I left behind. No one found it. I couldn’t believe it. I left that little wood falcon less than ten feet from Adam’s head. Yessir. I left a little falcon I carved myself right where Ottis and his machete left their handiwork. A canal by the Florida Turnpike near Vero Beach. I left the falcon on top of a wood box on a pillar of a small pier that looked over the water kind of to the side of the canal. You know. Parallel. Yeah that’s the word. Parallel to the canal. That’s where I put the second falcon. Just for Adam.

  What. One of your wood carvings.

  You bet. To take his soul.

  Like I said. I doubt you ever been in America.

  You can doubt. But you can’t run.

  You’re full of it. All lies and bragging.

  I was sixteen. Looked twelve. Hitchhiking everywhere in that sweet land of freedom and spacious skies.

  Baloney. How does a teenager get the money to go from Norway to America.

  Sweet and simple. I was on the streets in Oslo. Working them. There’s a good trade and real money for boys you know. Here and all over the world. I found me a Sugar Daddy. This judge from America. He brought me over to the U.S.A. It was nice. Paid all my expense. Kept man I was. That’s what them Americans call it. He got me an apartment in Georgetown and really nice clothes and a B.M.W.

  You got some tall tale.

  Oh I was tall. And I was his tail. He was a judge from New Hampshire or Maine or somewhere like that and he was rich and drove a real nice Mercedes. You ain’t never seen anyone drive such a nice car here in Oslo. The judge was some big honcho in that big old white court building in Washington D.C. He loved blabbing about how corporations have too much power but he sure liked tying me up a little too much. Whips and chains and chokers. And batons. He used those on me for more than just beating me if you know what I mean. It got to be too much one night. So I beat him up. Sissy later told police he got mugged when he was out jogging. Mugged. Imagine that. He lied so no one would know about us or him out trolling for other boys and studs when he got bored with me. I figured he ain’t going to be paying my bills no more and might even call the cops or immigration next time. So I split. Hitchhiked.

  Where you go.

  Everywhere. Week later I got to Hollywood. Florida not California. That’s where I met these two nuts at a soup kitchen. Henry and Ottis. Like Thelma and Louise. Only badder. A real loving man and wife couple except for they was two men. They were real love birds them Henry and Ottis. A regular Romeo and Juliet. Those two went at each other night and day at the homeless shelter and all the parks and public bathrooms. You could hear them going at each other all night. That sound ain’t something you don’t forget. Worse than two squealing pigs in the mud or a couple of back alley cats.

  Enough. I get the idea.

  Henry was the husband. Ottis the wife took orders. They was so sweet holding hands and kissing all the time. It was nineteen and eighty-one. July. Late July. Really hot. Damn hot. Not like this frozen hellhole of our country.

  That’s one thing you’re right about.

  Henry wanted me but he gave me to Ottis on account of Henry feeling bad that he took and killed this favorite niece of Ottis. She was the child bride of Lucas this fifteen year old sweetie pie Becky Powell. Real nice gal she was. After Lucas got angry with her and killed her I seen her panties inside Henry’s underwear. He used to wear her bra and clothes too after he killed her. Now Henry liked men and boys and girls and women and he did her every which way and then cut off her head. That got Ottis real sore. Kept bothering Henry over that. So Henry let Ottis keep me. That was real good cause Henry always used to tell me what he wanted to do to me. You see. That’s one way I learned so much about how to kill. I saw him do it with Ottis. Exactly what to do. How to scare the daylights out of them so bad that they can’t even move. How to leave them freaking frozen with terror. They won’t lift a finger to save themselves with all their good and fine manners.

  Uh huh. So you say.

  We was all three a happy family. Father mother son. Ottis called us the Unholy Trinity. I was an angel. Their angel boy who helped them get more boys and girls. You know what an angel is. Don’t you.

  Not really.

  A messenger. A messenger from God. In my case I was a messenger from the gods Henry and Ottis.

  Gods.

  Yes sir. You see women bring life to earth. But men take it. And there ain’t nothing wrong taking a life. Heck. Ottis used to say that them abortion doctors chop up babies all the time so why can’t a man do the same. Ottis and Lucas always said killing was retroactive abortion. And killing makes us gods. Yessiree. Men are gods.

  Gods.

  Yes sir. And not just any gods in the case of Ottis. You see Ottis and his siste
r and grandmother and his whole whacko family was into Satan and Devilworship. No doubt about it. The Devourer was head of that family. Dang. Now that I think of it no wonder I sort of went nuts with him and Henry. You think I’m nuts. Don’t you.

  Why ask.